Blogger Public Awareness Committee

Introducing the Championing Children’s Services Toolkit!

We all know at least one advocacy fact to be true: advocacy season never ends! As children’s librarians and support staff, we are often the first to advocate for children and their right to read, right to access, and more. ALSC’s Public Awareness Committee is proud to announce the completion and unveiling of nearly two years of work: the Championing Children’s Services Toolkit!

Blogger Public Awareness Committee

Hosting Your Own Mock Youth Media Award

This is the time of year when speculation on which books might take the win for our Youth Media Awards begins.  My first encounter with a mock anything took place my first December working as a children’s librarian when my library system hosted a mock Caldecott and Newbery during a day long training for all youth services staff.  Ever since then I have been hooked. I love hearing other people’s opinions on the books we look over using the lens of the different awards’ criteria. 

Blogger Public Awareness Committee

Treasures Unlocked with LOC Digitized Children’s Books

Who’s celebrating the 100th anniversary of Children’s Book Week? The Library of Congress! They’ve launched a new collection: Children’s Book Selections that include seventy-one treasures. What will you find? Classic and lesser-known works published in the United States and England before 1924. These historical and rare books span many generations and topics. Themes include learning to read, reading to learn and reading for fun. They are all available for you to read, share, and reuse how you like. What to look for? Highlights include examples from England’s golden age of book illustration. From Randolph Caldecott and Walter Crane, as well as works from American illustrators, like W. W. Denslow and Peter Newell. This delightful collection offers a record of the past. Books are available for download in multiple formats.   In Peter Newell’s The Rocket Book, rhyming text accompanies illustrations that incorporate holes in the center of each page. See…

Blogger Public Awareness Committee

Incorporating Writing into Library Programming

While attending ALA annual in Washington DC this past June, I was fortunate enough to attend a presentation titled Writing Boxes: How libraries can create diverse, welcoming, intergenerational programming to inspire writing as an integral part of supporting literacy and family engagement. I left the program inspired and ready to infuse more writing exercises into my passive programming in my children’s room. Most exciting of all was when presenter, Lisa Von Drasek, shared that the curriculum she developed for use in libraries serving youth was going to be shared for free online through permissions from The University of Minnesota. You can download the free e-book or purchase a physical copy here.